They used to talk a lot about heroes and courage back then. Thing is, even now, when I think of the wars I have lived through, I canna put my finger on what these things mean. Is it more courageous to follow blindly or to make a stand for what you believe? To kill for the right reasons—is that what heroes do? What of the soldier who is reckless, selfish, but still saves a life? And if you do the right thing, and fail, if you cause damage doing it—do ill results cancel out good intentions, a good heart?

Your grandfather went to war with a good heart, lambsie. When he came home, his heart was broken.

11

Delays were commonplace back then. I didn’t get the telegram telling me Magnus Tulloch had been wounded at Amiens until after the armistice in November 1918. He was in a French military hospital. Superficial injuries: that’s what they said.

He would be all right!

And the war was over!

Clementina and I hugged each other, crying. Such joy, such unutterable sadness. When finally we could speak we told each other that everything—everything—would change now, although even then we knew it could never be as it was before. And somehow we buried the words wounded and injuries among the exhilaration of He will be all right! and The war is over!

Magnus Tulloch was shipped home in March—that miracle, that blessing. I can still see him, lambsie, walking to me down Martha Street, pulling the hat from his head. For a brief moment the sky was in his eyes, the sun in his hair, and he was there, nothing but the boy, and I thought: Through it all, you have found your way home. His lips moved but there was so much racket from a flock of twenty-eights flying overhead that I couldn’t hear. What? I asked the boy. What did you say?

It was later that I understood: he had come back to say goodbye.

~

Inside our little cottage, Magnus Tulloch was besieged by a happy, weeping Clementina and a battery of questions from Hal and Jessie, who were eight years old and curious and avid for tales of adventure.

Leave your Uncle Magnus to catch his breath, Clementina scolded.

But I could see in her a need as keen as theirs to shake words from him, find again the man she had lost through the return of this one.

Magnus Tulloch smiled in a nervy kind of way, and begged leave to be gone a wee while.

Wait, I called, following him out, grabbing my hat from the hook by the door, wait an’ I’ll come with ye, we can walk to the sea.

I put my arm through his, but he disentangled himself. Will not be gone for long, he muttered. A clumsy kiss on the cheek.